


Through the Glass

by ABrighterDarkness



Category: Marvel Cinematic Universe, The Avengers (Marvel Movies)
Genre: Bruce Banner-centric, Creepy, Gen, Ghosts, Haunted Houses, Magic Mirrors, Mirrors, Multiverse, Shuffle Challenge, Spooky, Trapped
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-28
Updated: 2020-10-28
Packaged: 2021-03-09 04:49:35
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,116
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27229138
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/ABrighterDarkness/pseuds/ABrighterDarkness
Summary: There were mirrors of all shapes, styles, and sizes covering very nearly every inch of space along the walls.  They were clean though.  Not a speck of dust, a smudge or even a fingerprint on the glass or the frames.  The contrast to the dusty state of the rest of the room was as unnerving as the mirrors themselves or the chill inducing sounds and ghosting touches.
Relationships: Bruce Banner & Steve Rogers & Tony Stark
Comments: 4
Kudos: 11
Collections: Marvel Spooky Scramble 2020





	Through the Glass

**Author's Note:**

> Written for Marvel Fandom Halloween Scramble. 
> 
> Prompts given were: Bruce Banner + Bruce Banner + Trapped in a Haunted House trying to escape ghosts.

Bruce jolted awake with an ache in his head and a clawing itch under his skin. It was mostly dark in the room, wherever he was. But he squeezed his eyes closed again against what little light remained, pressing his fingertips against his eyelids. It did little to ease the lingering ache. Bruce groaned as he pushed himself upright. 

Hulk rumbled irritably in the back of his mind and, for once, Bruce had to agree with him. He sighed and dropped his hands back to his side and looked around the dingy room. It was dim and musty. There had to be at least a half-inch of caked-on dust on nearly every visible surface of the room. It was unnerving. No damage that might indicate that Hulk was responsible for his presence. There weren't even footprints in the layer of dirt that covered the floor to possibly explain how he had even gotten there. 

Bruce was, unfortunately, no stranger to waking up in unfamiliar places. It was an unfortunately frequent occurrence for him anymore. This felt different though. Somehow, though he had no idea what it was that made it different. Maybe it was because, for once, he’d woken in an unfamiliar place fully dressed. That went a long way in describing at least some of the difference.

He forced down a shudder at the faint, echoing noises that worked through the small room. Forced himself to ignore the way that the long shadows seemed to reach out like long spindly fingers even though there was no movement, no shifting of the light that ought to have given the shadows room to move. Bruce could feel goosebumps spread across his skin at the feel of a ghosting touch to his shoulder that had no visible origins. 

He swallowed thickly and took in the small room more carefully, anything to distract his mind from the unease. Small, just barely large enough to fit the minimal furniture it contained. There were no doors, no windows that he could spot.

Just the mirrors.

Bruce couldn’t place exactly what it was about those mirrors that had the fine hairs standing on end and a chill down his spine. Implacable unease clung tight, sending both Bruce and the Hulk on high alert. 

There were mirrors of all shapes, styles, and sizes covering very nearly every inch of space along the walls. They were clean though. Not a speck of dust, a smudge or even a fingerprint on the glass or the frames. The contrast to the dusty state of the rest of the room was as unnerving as the mirrors themselves or the chill inducing sounds and ghosting touches.

“Not yet,” he muttered under his breath when Hulk seemed like he wanted to surge forward and break them out, careless of what destruction he might leave in their wake. He could admit that, possibly for the first time in Hulk’s existence, Bruce was not only tentatively grateful for the Other Guy’s presence but also sorely tempted to allow the beast to take over. If only to escape whatever this place was. 

Bruce cautiously shifted forward on the old, squeaky bed that he had been deposited onto, shivering when the shadows writhed more rapidly and odd touch seemed to cling to him, following his movements easily. He could feel the gripping tugs at his shirt and his hair, seeming to want to hold him in place. He pulled more forcefully forward, instinct urging him far away from this unseen threat.

He absently noted, as he moved, that the blankets and sheets were still neatly made up, his body weight hardly seeming to ruffle the material. Odd. But the whole situation was odd enough that the bedding seemed inconsequential. 

As his feet touched the floor, there was a creak and a low groan from the otherside of the empty room. Bruce froze, eyes narrowed as he attempted to see past writhing shadows and his achy head and through the low, dim lighting. He had spent enough years on the run and in hiding, both tucked away and in plain sight, to know better than to announce himself.

He felt his body tense defensively and Hulk pulse almost protectively in his mind. Every part of him braced to fight or to break through the gleaming mirrors in search of a way out. Bruce held himself utterly still, unwilling just yet to give into the urge. Not until he had a better idea of what was happening, where he was and who or  _ what _ this potential foe might be.

But all his eyes could find was mirror covered walls. The room was hardly big enough for the sparse furniture as it was. The additional sound made little sense. None of it made sense. Bruce swallowed thickly and slowly pushed to his feet.

Movement in one of the mirrors on the wall to his left caught his attention. He initially dismissed it as a reflection of his own movements only to immediately recall the oddness of the entire situation. Somehow he thought that dismissing any nuance in this place could be catastrophic.

Whoever it was on the other end didn’t seem too mindful of the same caution that Bruce felt. They huffed irritably and there was another screeching creak of rusty springs followed by what sounded like a string of muttered curses and insults. If the entire situation hadn’t been incredibly unnerving, Bruce might have found himself amused by the creative string of words.

“Alright,” an unfamiliar, oddly distorted voice called through the dark. “I know someone’s over there. Let’s just get the creepy monologues out of the way so I can go ahead and get back home.”

“Sounds like you’re the one considering the monologue,” Bruce pointed out dryly before he could help himself. 

“Not really my style,” the voice responded. There was another creaking sound followed by the quiet thud of footsteps crossing the room. 

Bruce forced down a shiver at the sound as the small, dusty room stayed entirely empty aside from the minimal furniture and himself. A face appeared in one of the mirrors in front of him, duplications appearing on each and every one of the mirrors scattered across the same wall. The effect was stunningly unsettling, possibly even more so than everything previous combined.

He didn’t know the man. Bruce could swear that he had never seen him before. He was taller and considerably less grey than Bruce. Sharper, angular jaw and narrower eyes. The man looked more militarily inclined as well. Bruce was sure he didn’t know him, had never met this person before. 

And yet.

And yet he was undeniably familiar. Even the Hulk flared in his mind, sitting up and taking notice of the newcomer. Bruce was sure that boded well for none of them. Except, instead of the familiar, all-consuming rage, all Bruce was able to feel was intense curiosity.

“So what’s this?” The man said, derision and resignation twisting the words. “Another trap? Won’t work. I’d have thought you’d realized that.”

“What?” Bruce frowned in confusion.

“You’ve got the look,” the other man shrugged, falsely idle. “Scientist. I’ve already run all the tests that can be run. This here’s not going to hold, think we both know that by now.”

“Funny,” Bruce said, not finding anything about this even remotely amusing. “Here I was thinking the same thing.”

Bruce flinched heavily when a loud  _ thump _ from behind him echoed through the small room. He glanced back at the wall of mirrors in front of him, the man on the other end was looking behind himself for a moment longer before turning back.

With a very familiar green glow to previously blue eyes.

“Who are you?” Bruce demanded uneasily. He knew, he could  _ feel _ the static pressure behind his own eyes that told him that his own had turned similarly.

“What the fuck is this?” The man scowled, expression shifting to calculating. 

Before Bruce could think to respond, another creak and the soft whispering sound of fabric running against fabric sounded from just behind him, the same place as the thud previously. Bruce turned, carefully angling his body as not to turn his back entirely to the occupied mirrors. 

The mirrors that had been behind him were filled now too. 

Another man, younger looking than both Bruce or the man in the first set of mirrors. Dark haired, clipped much shorter and more neatly kept. And again, entirely unfamiliar but unsettlingly familiar all the same. 

“Should we assume that  _ you _ have a Hulk too?” Bruce asked, clipped, dry, and bitter. He frowned and tilted his head in thought. 

The newest arrival looked at what Bruce could only assume was his own walls full of mirrors, wide-eyed and obviously as uneasy as Bruce felt. “I feel like answering that would be unwise on my part,” the man responded.

“Multiverses,” Bruce realized, frowning and beginning to pace the small room without paying much attention to it. “Where the hell is Tony when I need him.”

“If I’m correct,” he frowned again, cutting himself off abruptly and paused his pacing. Bruce turned until each wall of occupied mirrors was on either side of him, where he could see both with relative ease. After a moment, he pressed forward with his hunch. “I’m Doctor Bruce Banner. Several years ago I was involved in a program that sought to replicate the Supersoldier Serum successfully created by Doctor Abraham Erskine and subsequently lost in the early 1940’s.”

“Hello Gamma Radiation and Hulk.”

“You said something about multiverses,” the first man pointed out flatly. “Think you ought to explain what you mean.”

Bruce nodded absently. “It’s not my area of expertise but it’s a theory. It theorizes that there are innumerable alternate realities, alternate universes out there. Some very, very similar and some wildly different from our respective own,” he explained rapidly, somehow knowing without having to check that the other two men were capable of following. If he could follow Tony Stark’s rambling diatribes, these men were perfectly capable of what essentially amounted to following their own thought processes. “Already, between the three of us there are obvious differences, but it seems that we share several key points.”

“And someone thought it was a good idea to stuff three of us together?” Banner-I, the taller, broader one, frowned, shaking his head. “This seems a little beyond General Ross’s usual methods.”

“Think the biggest concern is figuring out how to get out, don’t you?” Banner-II, the younger looking one, countered. Bruce felt an odd bolt of amusement rush through him, suddenly grateful for his introduction to Tony’s tendency to utilize various nicknames. It was a helpful concept, just then. “And how they got us here to begin with. I didn’t think tranq’s worked on me anymore.”

“Not much does work anymore, does it?” Bruce said thoughtfully as he considered the multitude questions surrounding their current predicament. Curiously, he approached the nearest wall of mirrors. He hesitated briefly, ignoring the questioning stares of his two counterparts, and raised a hand to tap curiously at the surface of the closest mirror. It rippled, almost water-like, out from his finger and clung to his fingertip as he withdrew. 

“Do that again,” Banner-I demanded, eyes narrowed.

Bruce blinked up at the image but nodded once. He tapped the surface again, noting the coolness of the clinging material. This time though, the surface rippled more abruptly and there was a hard, returning nudge against his fingers.

“That was you?” he asked for confirmation, more relieved than he cared to admit when the man nodded.

The sound of forcefully cracking and splintering wood and shattering glass had all three men flinching into a protective crouch, arms over their head. When Bruce looked back up, the tiny room was considerably more crowded than it had been the second before. 

The broad form and glinting Captain America shield took up the doorway--which Bruce only  _ just _ realized existed. No, he recalled. It  _ hadn’t _ existed before. No doors, no windows, only dust and mirrors. What was this place? He could see the tell-tale blue glow that indicated that Tony was suited up right behind Steve. 

Steve stood stock-still for a brief moment, clearly taking in the room, before he found Bruce still huddled against the wall. “Are you alright?” he asked carefully.

“Sufficiently startled,” Bruce responded. “But otherwise fine.”

Steve nodded shortly and glanced at the two men in the mirrors guardedly. “Who are they?”

“Alternate Me’s?” Bruce mused.

Steve glared exasperatedly over his shoulder but moved carefully into the room to allow Tony to enter, leaving the suit standing guard just outside the door. “Alternate you’s huh?” Tony repeated, scanning the men in the mirrors critically. “You Hulk-out on us, wind up in a House of Horrors and end up with creepy other yous?” 

“Sounds about right,” Bruce huffed a tired laugh. He supposed that coming back from the Other Guy being in charge helped explain why Hulk hadn’t forcefully burst free already. Though it didn’t answer so many other questions that Bruce had about this place and how he’d come to be there.

“Huh,” Tony frowned. “Well,” he continued shortly. “Party’s over. Time to get back home Brucie-Bear. It’s past curfew.”

“What about them?” Steve frowned, nodding toward the mirrors. He absently shifted the shield back onto its harness and approached the nearest wall. “Do you have anyone coming for you?” He asked them kindly, glancing at Tony when he huffed irritably. 

“Bruce was on the run for a long time, Tony,” Steve reminded him. “If the situation was reversed and they just left Bruce here, I’d imagine you’d figure out everything about the multiverse just to tear them a new one.”

The mirrored-Bruces exchanged long, wary looks with what must have been their own walls of mirrors before answering in the negative. Unlike Bruce had done, Steve didn’t hesitate before touching the surface of the closest mirror, brow furrowing when it rippled. He nodded to himself and scanned the wall critically, moving to stand in front of the largest mirror on that particular wall.

Bruce glanced questioningly at Tony who shrugged, arms crossing in front of him even as he tracked Steve’s movements with avid curiosity. “It’s Cap. We’ll figure out what he’s thinking when it happens.”

“Just a hunch,” Steve said thoughtfully over his shoulder. Without another word, he plunged his hand and arm up to the elbow into the mirror, the image of his hand replicating across the rest of the mirrors. Steve met Banner-I’s eye in the smaller mirror just above and nodded once. 

Banner-I eyed him suspiciously before taking a hold of the red-gloved hand.

Steve planted his feet, bracing one hand against the mirror’s frame and  _ pulled. _ Despite the fluid appearance of the mirrors’ surfaces, they didn’t seem inclined to allow the movement. Bruce watched Steve’s eyes narrow and jaw set in familiar determination and felt the Hulk rise forward in obvious curiosity. 

And then every mirror on the wall shattered at once, raining shards of very-solid glass onto Steve and the floor. Tony and Bruce instinctively ducked and protected their heads and faces. Bruce slowly lowered his arm when the raining glass came to a stop. He could see Tony doing the same out of the corner of his eye but his attention was immediately drawn back to the wall of mirrors.

Which were entirely intact. 

Despite the glittering shards that covered the floor, each and every one of them were as precisely pristine as they had been when he had awoken. And equally as empty. He glanced back at Steve. And Banner-I. 

“It worked,” Bruce said, blinking in surprise before cautiously approaching. 

Steve glared at the mirrors, raising a hand and tapping at the solid glass with his fingertips. 

“Huh,” Tony said again, sidling up beside Bruce.

“You okay?” Steve asked Banner-I, pulling his attention away from the wall.

“Yeah,” Banner-I nodded.

Steve nodded shortly before turning abruptly to the opposite wall. He eyed the second wall of mirrors critically before tugging his shield from his back and positioning it onto his left arm. Lesson learned, Bruce thought as he watched Steve plunge his arm through the surface of another large mirror.

This one though, this one seemed even less inclined to release its captive. Steve huffed, “Need one of you over here.”

Bruce moved quickly and automatically, if only out of a sense of almost morbid curiosity, while Tony and Banner-I watched warily from a distance. Steve nodded crisply and shoved the shield into Bruce’s hold.

“Gonna need both hands, I think,” Steve explained shortly. “Be prepared to cover both of you. Don’t worry about me.”

“Right,” Bruce said uneasily, shifting his grip awkwardly on the shield. Actually, considering he was generally a backseat-driver for the Hulk during the calls that he was active in, it was the first time he’d had the opportunity to handle it. Thankfully, there wasn’t much time for him to focus on that. The less teasing material he gave up to Tony the better.

Steve pushed his free arm into the mirror. The image of red-gloved hands gripping Banner-II’s upper arms tightly echoed across the wall. Steve  _ pulled _ and Bruce quickly raised the shield as bare hands on Steve’s forearms began to show on their end of the mirrors. Steve gave a low growl of frustration and shifted backward, using strength and body weight to pull Banner-II the rest of the way free. Bruce quickly raised and ducked under the shield the moment the man’s legs cleared the frame.

There was no shower of glass this time.

There was nothing at all.

And then the surface of every mirror rippled as though touched simultaneously. The five men stayed stock still for a long moment, eyeing the mirrors warily. Nothing. No glass, no unexpected sounds. 

Nothing.

And then Tony swore.

Bruce jolted and turned to face Tony but Tony was already shoving past him toward the door. Banner-II’s hands on his shoulders steadied him from being knocked over by the abrupt movement but that barely registered. Not when his eyes tracked Tony’s movement to the door where Steve and Tony had broken in. When they had come for him. 

Outside of which Tony had left his suit.

The door was gone.

The room darkened rapidly, overtaken by the densely writhing shadows that crept over the walls and reached through the mirrors’ surfaces surrounding them on all sides.

“Doctor Banner,” Steve said, low and wary as he retook his shield and settled it on his arm. When three Banner’s turned his direction in response, Steve swallowed thickly. “Think this just might be a good time to get angry.” 


End file.
